I can think of several reasons that Palm organizers, and certainly other PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), haven't caught on with regular folks. Some of these are problems only in the minds of prospective buyers, but some are very real.

"Many people still joke that handwriting recognition on a PDA means that 'have lunch with Bob' will be turned into 'mail socks to Mom'."

Regular folks still have a lot of misconceptions about Palm organizers, probably as a holdover from the bad old days of the first electronic organizers. People still remember the ugly things with the nearly unreadable eight line by forty character screens, the tiny memories, and the Chicklet-size keys, and they expect the Palm device to be similar. Only a true gadget lover would suffer with something like that.

One of the most commonly asked questions Palm skeptics have is, "What if the batteries die?" I don't know anyone who's lost data as a result of battery failure. My batteries last for weeks, and I always get an early warning to replace them. Even if they did die, I would only lose a bit of data. Performing a HotSync with my PC on a regular basis guarantees that I'll always have a recent copy of my data ready to dump back into my Palm unit. The second most common question is, "If you lose it, don't you lose all your information?" The same answer applies, but wannabe Palm device users often don't know any of that. Palm, Inc. probably needs to do a better job of educating (read "advertising") here.

Then there's the Newton stigma. Remember how Doonesbury trashed the alleged handwriting recognition of that early PDA? Many people still joke that handwriting recognition on a PDA means that "have lunch with Bob" will be turned into "mail socks to Mom."

Well, truth be told, even Palm organizers aren't as intuitively simple as writing on paper. While the handwriting recognition is okay, I still think that very few real "regular" folks are willing to learn graffiti. Unfortunately, many of them think they have to; they're not aware of the on-screen keyboard. I suspect that graffiti-frustration is the leading cause of premature retirement of Palm units. This is probably Palm Inc.'s fault. They're in a bit of a Catch-22 when it comes to discussing this issue, because the official line has to be that Graffiti is so easy that anyone can learn it. Mention the on-screen keyboard in the same breath, and some might wonder why it exists if Graffiti is so simple. (A darn good question!)

This brings us to some very real reasons that Palm units aren't catching on among regular folks. First, the silly things are too expensive. You think the Palm IIIe, which is down to $150, is cheap? My old paper calendars and address books, which my first Palm device replaced, were free. Let's see, 150 divided by zero makes a Palm device infinitely more expensive. I told you I'm not a technical type.

The small screen also doesn't help sell these things. My wife's main complaint about her Palm unit is that she can't see her monthly schedule as anything more than a bunch of little dots on a grid. Her old pocket-size paper calendar, on the other hand, folded open to allow her to read everything at a glance. Some clever engineer needs to come up with a way to put a big screen in a small package without violating the laws of physics. Where's Doctor Who when you need him?